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JavaFX Amps Up Social Networking Products At LodgON

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Interactive recently spoke with Wim De Munck and Johan Vos of LodgON discussing how the
company
is using JavaFX to deliver social networking products and services to
clients. Both Wim and Johan were early Java pioneers who became
interested in JavaFX technology when it was first announced as a
Java-based RIA development tool at the JavaOne 2007 keynote address.
They were pleased to find that JavaFX has benefits on both the
development side and for the application's end-user. As Johan said: “For
our developers, JavaFX is a relief since the write-once
run-anywhere paradigm now holds for Web development as well,”
and pointed out that the end user equally benefits, of course, “from
the fact that a more attractive user interface can now be offered.”

LodgON uses Java end-to-end in its
application development, and Johan said he has found using JavaFX to
be critical to both the front-end and the back-end development. As
he stated, “In social networking software, the interactions
between users are very important; they provide part of the real value
of a project,” and pointed out
that “the
JavaFX HttpRequest in combination with the Jersey RESTimplementation
in the Glassfish back-end allows for a high number of small
requests.” Additionally, Johan reported that with
JavaFX, LodgON has experienced “a dramatic reduction of the
development time,” which he
said saves the company from losing time “writing dirty
hacks in JavaScript/CSS for each different browser.”

Johan
said the primary advantage JavaFX offers a Java developer “is
the ability to use the familiar Java APIs in the JavaFX code.” And
while LodgON also does projects in
Flex, Johan said there is no
mistaking the fact that the ability to use the Java Syntax in JavaFX “allows
for a really fast development.” As an added bonus, Wim said “customers
really like the
'application style' of the projects we do with JavaFX.” He listed
highlights his customers have
pointed to with the
employment of JavaFX including “the ability to drag the
JavaFX application out of the browser window, close the browser and
still continue working with the JavaFX application.”

Johan also reported that LodgON is
actively working on proof-of-concepts in a mapping software component
for opening up JavaFX to Location Based Services as well as an OSGi
service browser written in JavaFX that can handle both OSGi bundles
in addition to JavaFX apps. As to what he hopes the future holds
with JavaFX, Johan said that having a component that allows LodgON to
edit HTML “would allow us to port even more applications to
JavaFX.” LodgON is clearly
dedicated to learning and sharing more about JavaFX, and has just
created a new section on the
company's Web site where it profiles a sample of its JavaFX
applications.

To read more about how LodgON is using JavaFX and what other
benefits it has realized from its implementation of the technology,
check out the full interview transcript here.